Day 856 – Happy Veterans Day

November 12, 2016November 12, 2016Leave a comment

Once again I posted this yesterday on that OTHER website…sigh…

Somehow saying Happy Veterans Day seems like a conundrum to me because is not happy and people remembering it are sad.

That said I am sharing sketches of War Memorials I did in France last fall in Normandy at the sites of the Allied D Day Invasions 71 years ago.

The Canadian Cemetery at Beny sur Mer. It was odd to me that people to young to know the men buried there were crying over dead relatives.

That said I found myself doing the same thing as I shared a link to my dads historic battle of Foxhill at the Choisin Reservoir in 1950. PBS recently aired a riveting documentary about the week long battle. I had heard bits of the story but to actually see the 32 below conditions they fought in, the rugged almost arctic landscapes, the mass burials of the Marine dead,the frozen Chinese who were shot because the Marines had no other choice in this desperate time was a totally different experience.

The beautiful Canadian Juno Beach Museum shaped like a maple leaf on the beaches of La Manche, the Sleeve as the French call the English Channel. A stunning building wrapped in glowing aluminum with state of the art exhibits.

The Ranville Eglise next to another Canadian Cemetery in Caen Normandy France. The day was getting dark and somber threatening rain that afternoon.

The Pegasus Bridge Museum. Using gliders brave British paratroopers jumped behind Nazi lines BEFORE the Allied invasion forces landed on the Normandy beaches. I am sure many of them are now buried at the nearby Ranville Cemetery. They are immortalized in the movie The Longest Day.
Thanks for stopping by.

Margaret xoxox

Day 599 The Name is Bond

February 21, 2016Leave a comment

James Bond -6×10″ Arches Carnet de Voyage HOT Press

Lots of fun last night sketching at Wet Paint party at Sacred Heart Cultural Center.

The Vintage Olie models were styling James Bond movie fashion style. Lucky Ruth Pearl and I had a table right next to one of their six pedestals as they rotated around the audience.

I really liked this just as it is EXCEPT all my gooey only fingerprints all over it. Sigh. The light we were drawing in was terrible and my beloved Noodler was leaking as usual. Not conducive to clean drawings.

Misplaced my non leaky Noodler

Konrad. 😱

Background is gouache. Covers those ink prints!!

Wc Used Quin coral , French ochre, cerulean, burnt sienna, burnt umber, ultramarine blue.

More urban sketching coming!!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 553 – Montmartre

January 7, 20164 Comments

Do you like it better with the red Moulin Rouge or all ink?!

I really have to quit drawing these in my sketchbook. Somebody is already asked to buy it or a print. So now I have to draw it over. WHY do I do these things?!

Carbon pen with carbon platinum ink. Great fine point pen but sometimes it leaks BLOBS On your just drawn paintings. Sigh. BIG blobs.

I have a French Seine riverbank landscape I was working on yesterday. Yes. You guessed it. BIG BLACK blob. No warning.

It also leaks into the cap which can cause problems. Sigh. What’s a girl to do?!

I know. White out?! 😜

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 540 – quite a few travel journal pages done

December 23, 2015Leave a comment

Paris Day 1 – Giddy with excitement.

Now but since I am once again traveling will parcel them out and hope I get some more done. Not easy with an adorable three year old grandson “helping” you out. Lol

Like the layout. It evolved. The right page was done first sketched while we waited for our food. L’Artoise is a sweet little restaurant on Rue d’Artois around the corner from our hotel the Rochester. The Yelp reviews were spot on. Food was passable but not memorable.

Debbie and Tucker also cruising on Viking and staying at the Rochester.
The Proprietors were sweet and oh so French. The eggplant entree w a slab of store mozzarella was not great. The chicken an improvement – cow au vin I think.

We were so excited that dog food would have been wonderful lol. We imagined we were Phil who we followed on his adventures on PBS What is Phil eating. A hoot. Phil would not have eaten at L’Artois.
Dessert créme brûlée. Yummy. Then we walked the champs Elysees. I think we walked five miles even with out jet lag.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret off to make Christmas cookies but dreadfully in need of a long winters nap. On the 26th right?! 😊 xxx

Day 537 – Finally

December 22, 2015December 22, 20152 Comments

Figured out the title page for my France travel journal. I filled up two Strathmore 500 mixed Media journals but still have a lot of pages to paint in what I call my coloring book.

The light was bad on the boat for painting so I mostly drew with my Noodler Konrads while I was on board.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret making headway in her journals finally. 😘

Day 534 Dr Sketchys

December 17, 20151 Comment

Tired Santa – Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet. 20 Minute sketch. My favorite of the ones I kept.

Was great fun last nite.

All the sketches are 10×14 watercolor and ink with wink of Stella glitter pens. I started with my Winsor Newton wc markers but found it easier to use my two small travel palettes I took to France- a whiskey painters palette and a cotman palette reloaded with artist grade watercolor. The skin tone is quinacridone sienna. Paintbrushes are the waterbrushes.

What every girl wants for Christmas – 20 minute sketch

Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet.
Princess Augusta got a little wild and XXX rated with her poses. I have this one to the guys because they stood for twenty minutes with their hands in the air and they were so embarrassed over the pose. Think cheeks were bright red.

Naught and Nice -15 min sketch

Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet.

WIP – Santa’s Ugly Christmas sweater. Ten minute sketch. Ink glitter pens and Watercolor in superbee tablet

First we did a fast sketch of the model and were suppose to just do the head. I forgot and started drawing his body and his tank top. After we drew him we had to make up an ugly Christmas sweater. The face could use more work.

I won two tickets to the Chat Noir New Years party with this sketch. Hurrah.

I also won a free drink with another sketch but I forgot to take a picture of it. Oops!!!

It was models choice.

Best prize we all received tickets for the current Chat Noir show. Thanks Chris and Princess Augusta.

There are a few more but they really require more work.

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 521 – Paris to Normandy

December 14, 20154 Comments

Another map of the places we went on our voyage down, or is it UP the Seine River. I guess we went both ways. Lol.

Maps are a lot of fun and make a great memory for a travel journal. You should try one.

First make a list of what u want to include. Sites restaurants places u stayed. Then make a rough draft of the roads or river you traveled. Use your photos to jog your memory. They are a lot of fun and your friends will love them.

I used Carbon platinum ink on strathmore 50o mixed media paper. Love that ink and that paper. Inked with the carbon pen, a Kuretake brush pen for lettering and a Noodler Konrad. The river was inked with the Kuretake for emphasis.

I drew the river with a pencil first but the rest was drawn straight on the paper with the carbon pen.

Colors used cerulean cobalt Inathrodone blue burnt sienna burnt umber yellow ochre cad yellow cad red and alizarin. Oh and hookers green.

Now go make a map!

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 520 – A Map of the Marais

December 13, 2015December 13, 2015Leave a comment

I like to draw maps of my trips sometimes. This one is definitely over the top compared to most of the ones I do. I probably have twenty hours in it so far.

This is a WIP. I think it needs something more on the right bottom corner but not sure what. Sooner or later it will come.

This is the walking tour we did of the Marais – about 2.5 miles- when we first got to Paris. It takes about 2 1/2 hours to complete it.

The biggest problem I had doing it was figuring out where we went. I had to use google maps to find the street names that went with my photos of the sites. I knew we started at Place de la Bastille and ended at the Hôtel de Ville. That was about it. I didn’t know the names of the streets and couldn’t remember the names of some of the sites like the Biblioteque.

Bit by bit I found my way thru the Marais so I could draw the streets. The next step was to put the buildings in their proper places. I tried to be accurate with my street layout but sometimes to fit buildings in I had to move the streets a little like around my favorite Merveiulleux de Fred and the oldest buildings in Paris on Francois Miron. Oops.

I also turned quite a few buildings around to face the viewer like Carnavalet and the Jewish école (school) on Francois Miron.

I drew this first with a pencil and then inked it with my Carbon Pen for two reasons – the fine point and the ink. Carbon ink doesn’t smear a lot. All done, all erased successfully with no smears. I noticed something that I did not ink. Took off the lid. Started drawing.

Suddenly I had ink blobs by the river and on La Pause Baubourg. The top of the pen was full of ink. I had ink all over my hands. 😢 I was seriously annoyed. I guess it’s a challenge to fix it right?

Something else to think about.

Sooner or later I will probably paint this or maybe just paint some things like the river.

Bytw I found this very cool map of the Marais on BHV/Marais’ website http://www.bhv.fr/plan-marais/ when I was trying to see what the right side of the BHV looked like. I only had a photo of the domed entrance. Having been in the BHV by the other entrance I knew it was different. Such a plain entrance.

I also found this very cool photo of the BHV there. I had to share it. It’s all decorated for Christmas now with a British theme. Mine was taken during the daytime. How cool is this store. Too of my list for a revisit whe. I get back to Paris.

This is a fast sketch Christine our tour guide in the Marais and a bit of journaling about it.
Thanks for reading. Time to tackle drawing the Seine now.

Margaret xxx

Day 508 – Sketching the Smokies

November 30, 2015November 30, 2015Leave a comment

first you better have a good breakfast. We started with some of the best eggs and bacon ever cooked in a restaurant at the Little House of Pancakes in Gatlinburg near our condos.

I got there early and of course I sketched the perfect line up of happy Customers mere feet away from my table.

This is drawn with my brush pen in my Stillman and Birn zeta colored with watercolors.

I always love it when people sit nearby never noticing they are being drawn. These actually look like the couple eating.

Fun drawing.

Thanks for looking.

Day 485 – La pause de beaubourg

November 8, 20153 Comments

Le Brasserie La Pause Beaubourg near the Hotel de Ville and Georges Pompidou Contemporary Art Center. Delicious food and wonderful staff. This is the view out their window. We are there again today – so delicious.

Despite being exhausted and walking 7 miles today I drew two sketches when we ate there again after our visit to the Georges Pompidou. I even drank a Coke. Something I rarely do.

La Pause Beaubourg where u can eat in the window in the most charming barrel chairs. Tiny furniture in France unlike supersized everything in America. Always too big pour moi!

La Pause Beaubourg

We did sit resting our aching feet and recooperating before we took off for some Marveilieux au Fred on Rue de Pont St Louis Phillippe three blocks from the Hotel de Ville in the Marais.

Can I say Heaven!? Delicious meringues filled with what might be marshmallow fluff?!

Tiny cakes called Marveilleux that melt in your mouth. Wonderful staff. The young homme who helped us spoke English like an American. When I asked him where he was from he said he learned English from American tv shows.

Beautiful churches abound. This one is interesting because it has a gothic flying buttressed church with a neoclassic facade. Gorgeous lit in the afternoon sun.

Hotel de Ville the crenelated embellished jewel also know as City Hall. Amazing building. This is the Seine River side.

Hotel de Ville from the plaza side.

Even the lights, the metro signs and

the advertising kiosk are amazing in Paris.

Notre Dame across the river from Hotel de Ville was amazing. The building is just incredible. So large! I am sure it’s bigger than a football field.

The Rose Windows and all the stained glass unbelievable. We just sat in awe of quite a while. Well worth getting up early and beating the crowd which stretched across the plaza when we exited the building.

To think that only Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame kept it from falling down in the 183os/. Thank you Victor Hugo and Quasimodo.

Views from the fifth floor of

The Pompidou were worth the admission alone.
Parisians packed the plaza in front enjoying the sunny warm fall day.

The children loved the bubble lady and so did we.

The architecture near the Ljmpidoy was quite eclectic. Gothic to modern in a row.

A few more views from the Pompidou.
Ze Eiffel Tower.
We are off the Viking Pride today and the Louvre. No hopping night club to keep us awake tonite on the quai.